“Well aren’t you early!” a high pitched voice called out, Roge smiling at the woman at the counter. Madam Madrid was the only other person Roge had told about his ‘memory loss’, mostly due to the fact that she could tell from his first day that he’d completely forgotten how to do his job. He still hadn’t gotten used to her look, though, the green-skinned woman looking almost sickly to his human-centric eyes. The fact that she was a *short* orc had surprised him at first as well, but the tusks she had were helping with his adjustment. She was one of the fancier dressed people he ever saw, her dress a bright purple with various rings and necklaces adorning her hands and neck.

  “Wanted to try some things out this morning, so I thought I’d give myself more time.” His eyes glanced to the trapdoor behind the front counter as he walked up to it, Madam Madrid having filled him in on her ‘side business’ after his first day.

  “Oh if you wanted to peruse…” she purred, Roge immediately waving her off.

  “Nope. Plants all the way!” She laughed as he headed out back, needing to get started on the ‘normal’ part of his work routine.

  The main front of the shop was a tobacco store, similar to one that Roge had worked for when he was in college. Even though the aesthetics of the world had been dialed back by a few centuries, magic had led to the development of *some* modern things, like cigarette packs. They were made in house, of course, instead of in a factory, but the professional way Madam Madrid set up the packs, pipe tobacco, etc. had led him to believe at first that she shipped them in.

  The first room in the back was the packing station, using various machines to package the various products. Since magic items were very expensive, and Madam Madrid believed in hard work paying off, almost everything was mechanical in nature, besides the drying station. It would take months for the leaves to normally dry, and so she had splurged on a magic item that heated the leaves and seemed to make some sort of temporal field. All Roge had to do was put a batch in the oven-like contraption, and a day later perfectly cured leaves would be ready to grind.

  Before heading back into the greenhouse, he made sure to pull the finished leaves out of the drying station and set them up in bags to be prepped later. Most of the time, customers came in for specific items, a list of orders kept track of in one of the many books she had lying around. So all Roge had to do was look at it after tending the plants later and prep the upcoming orders. Sometimes he’d need to increase the volume drying in case items sold off the shelves, but Madam Madrid had explained that he usually didn’t have to do that until the weekend.

  Once the tobacco was sorted and the inside of the drying station was cleaned, he headed back to the greenhouse, letting out a small smile when he saw all of the various plants. The shop didn’t just deal with tobacco leaves, but also various other processable plants, tea and fragrances just to name a few. He honestly didn’t know the names of half of the plants in the ‘other’ section on sight, though he was quickly getting through the shop’s Plant Dictionary so he’d know how to harvest them.

  The first part of his duties was his favorite out of all of them, Roge breathing slowly as he summoned his ability forward.

  Soon a thick cloud of mist escaped his mouth, Roge putting a good bit of mana into the ability to let the water saturate the whole greenhouse in one fell swoop. Madam Madrid had sprinklers for the same task of feeding the plants, but considered it less of a cost for Roge to use his ability instead. ‘Besides,’ she had told him, ‘It lets you train your ability. Can’t have that thing be at Rank 1 forever.’

  Taking a few deep breaths of the now moist air, Roge looked over the plants with one of his skills, looking for any signs of disease in the product.

  Roge always sighed when he was reminded of the bad effects on the plant, though that thought was always tempered by Madam Madrid’s explanation on healing magic and the [Constitution] stat. Apparently, with every increase above Average your Con score was, it could negate one negative Rank an Ability had. Considering how expensive [Healing Magic] was, only the nobles or those with high [Constitution] could smoke the plants safely. That didn’t stop some people with lower Con scores from smoking them, however, which rankled Roge every time he saw someone come into the store.

  Once he was done checking over all of the tobacco plants, his first experiment could commence. One thing that he’d noticed about his [Draconic Breath] Ability was that it could have sub-abilities, as well as the part about it enabling him to ‘breathe out various elements’. He wasn’t sure why the version of himself that people remembered hadn’t tried something with that before, but he’d been afraid to ask about his ‘previous’ actions. Too many questions he had would reveal his ‘memory loss’ to be a falsehood.

  Focusing once more on his breathing, instead of focusing on his [Fog Breath], he instead focused on his [Nature Magic] Ability.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  It took a few minutes for Roge to get the right amount of focus on what he wanted, knowing he was on the right track when an earthy, plant taste started forming in his mouth. Stealing a bit from what he knew about various energy-based religions from before, he started getting more and more of a sense of his mana. Rather than a liquid or a cloud, however, it more felt like liquid metal, similar to mercury. Unlike mercury, he could sense a green glow coming from the energy as he slowly filled up his lungs with it. Once he felt like he had the right amount, he steadily blew the magic out, opening his apparently shut eyes to watch the process.

  Rather than a cloud like he was expecting, the magic flowed out in twisting turns like vines. One might mistake it for fire if not for the fact that it didn’t burn any of the plants. Instead, the plants seemed to grow a bit taller as they absorbed the flames, shaking as they grew a few inches. One [Inspect] and he could tell that his suspicion had turned out to be true.

  Since he hadn’t let any intent into what he was doing other than to blow out [Nature Magic], he assumed the plants used the energy for more growth. The Rank ups were a welcome sight as well, though he was confused by the [Inspect] one. ‘Maybe because I cared more about the result?’ he thought to himself. He’d used it countless times on the plants before and hadn’t gotten the stupid skill to Rank up once before that!

  Shaking off his irritation, Roge moved over to the other side of the greenhouse to look for a specific plant. It didn’t take him too long to do so, the plant familiar to him after he’d first cut a leaf off of it.

  Roge felt the ridges where his eyebrows would normally be raise as he [Inspected] the plant, having not seen as much information before. He’d spotted the [Detox] Ability before, which made him think of coming to this plant first, but the [Stomach Calmer] one hadn’t been there before. Nor was the Rank of the plant displayed either. Making a mental note of the fact that his Rank up level was similar to the level of the plant, he focused on the one attribute he wanted. [Detox] seemed like the perfect thing he could add to the tobacco plants, as it would most likely counteract at least one of the negative effects in it.

  At least, if his thinking was correct. After a few minutes of trying out his [Draconic Breath] to pull the Ability into his lungs proved fruitless, he couldn’t put his finger (er… claw?) on what he was doing wrong. He got a sense that he could transfer Abilities between plants, most likely from the nudges [Nature Magic] was giving him, but he couldn’t think of what else to try. That had been his one good idea and it seemed to be a complete failure.

  As Roge was about to flick the screen out of his face, determined to look at it another time, his finger paused as it hovered over the text. That feeling from [Nature Magic] just got a whole lot stronger, especially when he hovered his finger over the [Detox] section of his [Inspect] window. “Certainly I can’t…” he murmured to himself, tapping the Ability while thinking about pulling it *out*.

  Having not expected anything to work, Roge was quite surprised when what looked like a coin manifested right in front of the screen. It dropped to the ground as he failed to catch it, drawing his eye to the peppermint plant and giving him another mini heart attack. The plant looked aged, as though it had been kept out in the sun with no water for several days. Thinking quick, he added a bit more water to it with his [Fog Breath], not even thinking about trying his new sub-ability with how long it took for him to cast currently. Thankfully the plant seemed to perk back up, though Roge would definitely spend more time on it to make sure it didn’t die on him. ‘Can’t have Madam Madrid docking my pay for killing her plants…’

  With the plant looking healthy enough and not degrading further, Roge finally looked at the coin that was sitting on the floor. About an inch in diameter, it almost looked to be made of white crystal with how see-through it was, the object glowing with a deep white light. The side Roge could see was stamped with what looked to be a teacup, stylized ‘steam’ coming off of it on the design. Picking it up, the back had the exact same design mirrored on it, the white pigment clouding the coin slightly so he couldn’t see completely through it. Looking closely at it, it almost looked like hollow crystal with fog moving around on the inside.

  Roge’s eyes widened at that description, his grin most likely sharp with his reptilian teeth. ‘Just what I wanted!’ He quickly ran over to one of the Tobacco plants right at the corner of the plot, pulling up its status and thinking of ‘depositing’ the coin into it. Unlike his other first thought with how his magic should work, this one worked first try, his thought of getting rid of a negative Ability spot on.

  A sigh was let out at the [Status] description, Roge having wanted to add another coin to get rid of the other bad effect. ‘Whatever. One step at a time.’ Feeling for his mana once again, he could tell that he was a bit low, though that didn’t stop him from [Magically Enhancing] the rest of the plants in the greenhouse. ‘Need more Abilities after all…’

  ~~~

  Waiting around for his mana to refill, having heard it was mostly a product of his [Wisdom] that determined that, Roge decided to work on the processing of the product he needed to make for the day. Grinding the tobacco, rolling cigarettes, and filling bags took him a good bit of time without magic to assist him, but he was happy for the mundane grind. Now that he was paying attention, he could feel his mana refill over time as he worked.

  It took him a good few hours to complete all of the orders, most nobles wanting great quantities of packs so their servants didn’t have to roll them themselves. After placing the last label onto the wooden boxes, wondering why the nobles didn’t just bring the handcrafted packs back, he sat back and stretched. His mana was mostly full at that moment, so Roge quickly went back to the greenhouse to potentially get more of their stock of tobacco the same as his test plant.